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Taron Wade

Like most men and women in this day and age, I have spent some time dieting and exercising in that quest to “lose weight”, “get healthy” or “tone up” – I’m sure you can fill in the blank with your own expression. I was pretty lucky, however, that this angst around my body started relatively late in life (my late 20s). Perhaps this is because I grew up around a mother with a very healthy attitude to her weight, so I never saw dieting as normal behaviour.

Rose & Willard

As a woman in her (very) late-thirties, I no longer read women’s fashion magazines. I still buy loads of clothes, but I’ve decided these days to be much more thoughtful about the source of my clothing and skip the magazine marketing. The fashion industry should be very wary that their continued use of emaciated teenagers to try to sell me – a grown woman – expensive clothes, has failed miserably. And, unfortunately for them, my increasing intolerance has grown in lock step with my disposable income.

Which is why I was very happy to catch wind of the fact that there are some fashion brands that I can in good conscience buy from. Companies that are taking a stand against the use of unhealthily thin-looking models. I recently had the opportunity to interview Heidy Rehman, founder, and owner of fashion brand Rose & Willard, both over the phone and then in person in front of the women’s networking group at my company.

Quite a few years ago I decided I wanted to learn to meditate. I had been reading for a long time about the benefits of mindfulness – the application of the skill meditation teaches you – which include such enticing things like living longer, the ability to heal yourself from many physical ailments and actually, changing your brain chemistry. Who doesn’t want these super powers?

So, I bought the most basic book I could find: Meditation for Dummies. And to its credit, it did what it said on the tin. It was a solid introduction, with no particular religious or philosophical bent. I learned a technique. Then dabbled – for years. In fact, having a little bit of a reading addiction, I’ve probably read more about the practice now than I’ve actually meditated. I’ve only ever succeeding in meditating maybe five or 10 minutes a day, and always in fits and starts.